HC Deb 05 August 1975 vol 897 cc205-6
1. Mr. Cockcroft

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what progress she is making in implementing the Quirk Report recommendations on speech therapists; and if she will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mrs. Barbara Castle)

The speech therapy services were integrated under the National Health Service on 1st April 1974. My Department has recently appointed a member of the profession as Adviser in Speech Therapy, whose advice will also be available to the Department of Education and Science and the Welsh Office. Implementation of the remaining recommendations depends on further discussion with the College of Speech Therapists and on the resources that health authorities can make available for this service. The House will recall the very substantial improvement in the pay of speech therapists, recommended by Lord Halsbury and implemented by the Government early this year.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Is my right hon. Friend aware that in Salford there is only one speech therapist although there should be 11 and although the need for therapists has been stressed by the teachers? Is my right hon. Friend further aware that the shortage is not due to money but is because many areas cannot get therapists as there are not sufficient training places for them?

Mrs. Castle

I am aware that there is an acute shortage of speech therapists in certain areas. I am sorry to hear that my hon. Friend's constituency is one of those areas. As I think he knows, the Government have accepted the target in the Quirk Report for building up to a total of 2,500 whole-time speech therapists but, as he says, the problem in the interim is partly of training and not merely of money. We are in consultation with the Department of Education and Science on ways of increasing the number of speech therapists. I am glad to say that a number of degree courses are now being introduced in addition to the diploma courses.

Mr. Steen

The right hon. Lady has explained what is happening to speech therapists, and it is true that Lord Halsbury has done them proud, but is she aware that nurses in schools without health visitor certificates and nurses in tuberculosis clinics are not getting the money which they need and which would put them on the same footing as nurses with health visitor certificates for exactly the same work? Does the right hon. Lady realise that she or one of her Ministers promised the House that this matter would be considered? What is happening now?

Mrs. Castle

I am sure the hon. Gentle-is aware that that is an entirely different question which does not arise from the Question on speech therapists. The matter to which the hon. Gentleman has referred is being discussed in the Whitley Council.